Heartbreak Hotel
by Windfighter
Summary: "Stop being a crybaby." Emil had been called that before, maybe that's why this time he swore not to complain again. But complaining isn't always bad.


_"_ _My leg does kind of hurt a lot..."_

 _"_ _No it doesn't. Stop being a crybaby about it."_

Emil swore right there that he wouldn't complain again. But that was three weeks ago and his leg still kind of hurt a lot. Mikkel believed he was coming down with the flu or something because, especially after a day of looting, his breathing was uneven and his face extraordinary pale. A couple of days Mikkel had even managed to convince Sigrun to let Emil stay behind to rest up while he followed along instead. Emil's leg usually felt a lot better after those days, but then by the end of next day the pain was back.

But he wouldn't complain. He wasn't a crybaby.

"Emil! Are you ready to go?!"

Emil took a deep breath and slowly got up from the bed, slowly put weight on his right leg. He closed his eyes as the pain rushed through his body and took a new breath, clenching his hands and opening them again. He limped at the first steps, but as he exited the bedroom he moved the pain as far back in his head as he could. His leg didn't hurt and he wasn't a crybaby.

The steps down from the tank were hard to navigate, especially as Sigrun was watching him. He would have prefered to put the right leg first for all the steps, but it wouldn't help. He flinched at every step anyway.

"Finally, come on now, or we'll miss all daylight."

She was exaggerating, of course, but Emil nodded and tried to hurry, tried to not limp but failed. Sigrun didn't notice it. They were just outside of Odense now, the excitement of being so close rubbed of on Sigrun, made her more impatient than usual. Emil had a hard time keeping up to her and she looked more and more frustrated for every time she had to stop and wait for him.

"You have to hurry up!"

Emil nodded. Opening his mouth to say something would only get painful sounds out, he knew that, and she wasn't expecting him to say much. He tried to hurry his steps, but that made the pain increase faster and he slowed down again. What should have only taken them 20 minutes to reach had taken them closer to 45 thanks to Emil. Sigrun fought bravely with the door, and after a couple minutes it fell over. Both of them coughed in the dustcloud that was released and then peered inside.

The interior seemed undisturbed. Emil noticed how it made Sigrun tense up. The building was sturdy, looking like something trolls would gladly built a nest in, and if it laid undisturbed... neither knew what that meant. Sigrun led the way through the building and Emil stopped when he noticed the stairs.

"Why did there have to be stairs?" he muttered, not loud enough for Sigrun to hear him. She gestured for him to hurry up before disappearing inside on of the rooms. Emil felt dizzy when he looked at the stairs, they seemed endless. He knew they weren't and slowly he started the climb. Sigrun was growing impatient with his slow pace and threatened to drag him up. He considered asking her to do that but decided it wasn't a good option and instead tried to hurry up.

His leg throbbed hard when he reached the end and got into the room Sigrun had found. She was already filling the bags with books and Emil leaned against the wall to get some weight of his leg, closed his eyes in order to gather himself before helping his captain.

"Here, catch!"

Emil turned around, braced against the wall with his right foot and stretched his arms to catch the bag that came flying. The bag crashed into his chest, he heard a snapping sound from his leg and then it gave way. He let go of the bag, a scream exited his mouth as he fell to the floor and he clutched his hands around his knee, bit down inside his cheek to stop the scream. He wasn't a crybaby.

"Emil! Shit, Emil, what happened?"

Sigrun kneeled infront of him, but he could hardly see her through the tears that welled up in his eyes. He tried muttering "nothing", but blood was filling up his mouth and he didn't want to open it anyway.

"Emil?" She wiped some blood from his lips. "Spit it out and talk to me."

He shook his head and she forced him to let go of his leg, pulled her arm free from the sling and pulled the leg of his pants up to see what was going on.

"Emil, this..."

She moved it. Emil screamed again, once again bit himself in the cheek to silence the scream. Sigrun pulled away.

"Just... just stay here! I'll get Mikkel!"

She started to move away, then stopped again. Emil looked at her back, tears still clouding up his vision. She came back.

"I'll see if I can find something to splint it with..."

She went away again, Emil heard her moving around. His hands clutched around his leg again and he spit out some of the blood.

"I'm sorry... I'm a crybaby."

"You're not a crybaby", Sigrun knelt beside him again and put something next to his leg. "Too short. Your leg is broken, of course it hurts."

She threw the plank away and got up again. Emil carefully tried to settle out, choked down a scream for every tiny movement in his leg.

"I'd get Mikkel, but with your luck you'd get three trolls and a giant over you before we came back."

"The... the books."

He tried to get up, but Sigrun pressed a hand on his shoulder, forcing him to stay on the floor.

"I'll get them tomorrow. Geeze, your leg is really swollen already..."

"It... it was already like that..."

Sigrun looked at him, raised an eyebrow, and put a plank on both sides of his leg. The planks was long enough to reach all the way from his ankle halfway up his thigh.

"...this'll do."

She grabbed some of the straps off the backpacks and used them to tie the planks around Emil's leg. He winced as she worked, tried to pull away by instinct and tried to stay still by reason. His eyes fell on the bandages hanging from her arm.

"...sorry I had you breaking your arm again..."

"Hm?" she noticed what he was looking at. "Oh, no worries, it was almost healed anyway. Okay, ready to get up?"

He shook his head, but tried getting up anyway. Sigrun quickly grabbed him to help him up.

"Don't put any...!"

Emil swallowed the scream and looked apologetically at Sigrun. She shook her head and put her arm around his waist, forced him to support against her. He put his other hand against the wall, for extra support, and they made their way back towards the tank. They stopped to rest a couple of times, Sigrun getting impatient again but Emil just couldn't hide the pain any longer. During one of the stops Sigrun asked how long it had been going on and Emil looked away.

"Since... since Amalienborg..."

Sigrun didn't say anything, instead she helped Emil back up again and they made the last couple hundred meters to the tank. Mikkel came up to them, looked slightly worried when he saw the makeshift splint on Emil's leg.

"What happened?"

Sigrun helped Emil settle down on the stairs to the tank before she poked Mikkel in the chest, hard.

"You **broke** his leg!"

"I... That is impossible. I was here the whole day."

"Not here, in Amalienborg! He's been walking around with a broken leg for three weeks because you have terrible aim!"

Emil closed his eyes and leaned back against the door to the tank. His leg was throbbing and he just wanted to lay down. At least his cheek had stopped bleeding. It didn't take long before Sigrun and Mikkel got quiet and Emil felt someone take the planks from his leg. He opened his eyes and watched as Mikkel pulled his pants up and carefully examined his leg. The older man nodded.

"Broken. And I do believe..." he pressed a little around the break and Emil bit himself in the cheek again, re-opening the wound. "...it has become misaligned. I am not certain I can fix this."

"Of course you can", Sigrun interjected and patted the Dane on his back before drying off the blood from the corner of Emil's mouth. "And then you can fix my bandages as well!"

"I will see what I can do", he turned back to Emil. "I am going to have to re-align your bones. Wait here while I look for something to ease the pain."

Emil rolled his eyes. It wasn't like he could move anyway.

"Oi, Mikkel!" Sigrun stopped him before he could walk away. "Maybe you could decontaminate us first."

"Ah, yes, I apologize. I must have... hmm... forgotten about that."

He forced the two vikings out of their clothes, started decontaminating them. Emil flinched at any movement his leg made, but didn't complain. When they were done Sigrun pulled him up again and helped him inside while Mikkel went to the back of the tank to look for anesthetics. Emil laid down on his bed, Lalli looking at him from under the bed and Sigrun leaned against the wall, looking at her right hand warrior.

"...Why didn't you say anything?"

Emil muttered an answer. Sigrun asked him to repeat and he stayed quiet for a while.

"...You told me not to be a crybaby about it."

"Oh..."

Sigrun fell quiet. Mikkel came inside and Emil tried to move away when he noticed the needle in his hand. The Dane looked stumped for a moment, then remembered the cat he had put down.

"This is different, Emil. It will not kill you. It will remove the pain while I set your bones right."

Mikkel put a bag on the floor next to the bed and leaned over Emil. The Swede looked at his captain before nodding and Mikkel forced the needle into Emil's leg, emptied it.

"It'll take some time for it to start working, just try to relax in the meanwhile."

Emil laid down and Lalli came out from the bed, settled up on the floor and looked at him, tilting his head.

"Broken", Emil said, pointed at his leg and then made a move with his hand as if he broke something in two. Lalli settled down in Tuuri's bed instead, pulling his fingers through Emil's hair to correct it. Emil smiled at him and said the one Finnish word he had actually managed to remember.

"Kiitos."

Sigrun threw a blanket over Emil before putting on her spare clothed and going out of the room. Emil closed his eyes, was almost drifting off thanks to Lalli's touch, when Mikkel came back inside. He brought a chair, on which he place a bucket of water, before he examined Emil's leg again. The younger man barely flinched and Mikkel decided the anesthetic was doing it's job, before taking a firmer grip around Emil's leg. Emil tried to pull away when he started working, but Lalli quickly grabbed his hands and he pressed them instead.

Mikkel worked quickly and soon let go of Emil's leg again, although the Swede still kept his hands around Lalli's.

"I apologize", Mikkel said, "it seems like I should have waited a little longer."

Emil shook his head.

"No worries, glad it's over with."

Mikkel nodded, pulled something out of the bag and started wrapping it around Emil's leg. Emil looked curiously at what he was doing.

"It is to keep the cast from hurting. Is it too tight?"

Emil shook his head. Mikkel wrapped it all the way up over his thigh and he got up in a half-sitting position to see what the Dane was doing. Mikkel pulled up something else from the bag and rolled it up before dipping it in the water. It felt heavy on the leg, but Mikkel assured Emil it would feel better when it dried. Lalli moved in behind Emil, to make it easier for him to sit up. After a while Mikkel was done with the casting and Emil looked at his leg and then leaned back towards Lalli.

"...I'm not gonna be able to move around with that."

"I certainly hope so, you are going to need to keep weight off it for at least four weeks."

Mikkel lifted the bucket and the bag and got out of the room and Emil looked at Lalli, who curiously studied Emil's leg.

"Looks like I'll be keeping you company for a while now, Lalli."

Lalli nodded. Emil wasn't sure if he had understood what Emil said, but Lalli had picked up a bit of Swedish so it wasn't impossible. Lalli pulled his fingers through Emil's hair again and Emil yawned. Lalli moved back so Emil could lay down, his head in Lalli's lap.

"Sorry Lalli, I just... It doesn't hurt right now and I haven't..." he yawned again. "...haven't gotten much sleep thanks to the pain."

Lalli pulled the blanket tighter around Emil, leaned back against the wall and patted Emil's head.

"God natt."

Emil smiled at his friend's words, closed his eyes.

"Hyvää yötä."

Emil could feel Lalli's fingers playing with his hair, could feel Lalli's other hand grabbing his own. To let him know he was there? Emil didn't understand the Finn. He thought about asking, but as he finally fell asleep the question disappeared from his mind as dreams invaded it.


End file.
